The police chief announced the news Friday. The state attorney general had decided not to pursue criminal charges against the officers involved.
Photograph: Josh Brasted/Getty Images

The police officer who shot and killed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge in 2016 has been fired, the city police chief, Murphy Paul, announced late Friday.

Paul said that officer, Blake Salamoni, who shot Sterling six times after a brief confrontation outside a convenience store, diverged from department policy procedure and refused to answer any questions from investigators about the incident.

“My decision was not based on politics,” Paul said during a news conference. “It was not based on emotions. It was based on the facts of the case.”

Police also released body camera footage and other videos of the officers’ deadly encounter with Sterling.

In the body camera footage, Salamonican be heard shouting profanities at Sterling and at one point threatens to shoot him in the head as Sterling asks what he did.

Salamoni shot Sterling six times during a struggle outside the Triple S Food Mart, where the 37-year-old black man was selling homemade CDs. Lake helped wrestle Sterling to the ground but didn’t fire his weapon.

The officers recovered a loaded revolver from Sterling’s pocket. Although Sterling never had the gun in his hands, the officers saidit caused them to fearfor their lives, believing thatSterling was reaching for it with his free arm.

“Our police officers are held to a higher standard. Fear cannot be a driver for an officer’s response to every incident,” Paul said Friday. “Unreasonable fear within an officer is dangerous.”

L Chris Stewart, a lawyer representing two of Sterling’s five children, said the newly released videos show officer Salamoni attacked Sterling without provocation “like a wild dog”.

“The most obvious thing that stands out is Alton wasn’t fighting back at all,” Stewart said. “He’s trying to defuse it the whole time.”

In June 2017, Baton Rouge’s mayor, Sharon Weston Broome, called on Paul’s predecessor, Carl Dabadie Jr, to fire Salamoni. Dabadie refused, saying it would be improper and premature because the shooting remained under investigation.

Broome reiterated her desire that Salamoni be fired in a joint press conference with Paul on Tuesday.

Salamoni’s attorney, John McLindon, had said Tuesday that he expected the officer to be fired. He called it “grossly unfair” that a disciplinary hearing was planned less than a week after the end of the criminal investigations. Lake’s lawyer, Kyle Kershaw, said his client’s actions complied with department procedures.